The present invention relates to a chemical liquid addition system and a chemical liquid addition method.
In order to perform a component transfusion, for example, it is necessary to prepare a blood component preparation by separating blood components such as packed red blood cell components or plasma components from blood. Blood cell preparations are prepared by, for example, separating blood collected in a blood bag into multiple blood components by centrifugal separation, and removing pathogenic substances such as white blood cells from the blood components with a filter.
In addition, it is also necessary to add a preservation liquid to blood component preparations in order to store blood components for long periods of time and maintain quality. This preservation liquid is added during preparation of the above-mentioned blood component preparation. However, since red cell components separated by centrifugal separation, for example, demonstrate extremely high Ht values and have difficulty in passing through a filter, preservation liquid is added prior to passing the red cell component through the filter for the additional purpose of diluting the red cell component. If a red cell component having a high Ht value were to be passed through a filter, there is the risk of the red blood cells being destroyed and clogging the filter.
In addition, since red cell components having a high Ht value are also viscous and do not easily mix with the preservation liquid simply by being added thereto, if these red cell components are passed through a filter as is, there is again the risk of the red cell components being destroyed and clogging the filter. Accordingly, it is necessary that red cell components and preservation liquid be adequately mixed.
The above-mentioned cell component preparations are prepared using a system in which a plurality of blood bags are connected with tubes since they are required to be prepared aseptically. For example, as shown in FIG. 7, this type of system 100 has a blood bag 101, a preservation liquid bag 102, a mixing bag 103, a blood component bag 104 and tubes 105 that connect them.
When preparing a blood component preparation, the system 100 is placed on a centrifugal separator, and blood in the blood pack is centrifugally separated into multiple blood component layers by the centrifugal separator. Next, the system 100 is removed from the centrifugal separator, placed on a blood component separation device having an extruding function, for example (see Patent Document 1) where the plasma component of the blood component layers is extruded from the blood bag and separated, and then transferred to the blood component bag 104 as a plasma preparation. In addition, the blood component layer having red blood cells is transferred to the mixing bag 103 in the blood component separation device. At this time, a preservation liquid is supplied from the preservation liquid bag 102 to the mixing bag 103. Next, the system 100 is removed from the blood component separation device, and the mixing bag 103 is shaken manually, for example, to agitate and mix the red cell component containing red blood cells with the preservation liquid. Subsequently, the mixing bag 103 is suspended above and the red cell component and preservation liquid in the mixing bag 103 are passed through a filter using the difference in gravity and the like to remove white blood cells and prepare packed red blood cell components.
[Patent Document 1] Patent Publication JP-A-H6-218039
However, addition of the preservation liquid using the system 100 in the manner described above is carried out by centrifugally separating blood with a centrifugal separator followed by transferring the system 100 to a blood component separation device where the red cell component is transferred to the mixing bag 103, the system 100 is subsequently removed from the blood component separation device and the mixing bag is shaken well to mix the red cell component and the preservation liquid. Consequently, addition of the preservation liquid is both bothersome and time-consuming. In addition, two devices consisting of the centrifugal separator and the blood component separation device are required, thereby resulting in increased costs.